Alyssa Batula

I am a doctoral candidate and researcher at Drexel University in the Music Entertainment Technology (MET) lab. My primary interests are signal processing and machine learning, especially as they relate to control and decision-making in humanoid robots.

From 2012-2015 I was funded through the NSF Graduate research fellowship. Previously, I was funded through the NSF GK-12 program (2010-2012), which integrated graduate-level students into high school classrooms in order to provide teaching skills to the graduate students and inspire interest in STEM fields for the high school students. I worked with teachers at Central High School and the Philadelphia High School for Girls to incorporate engineering concepts and challenges into the high school curriculum. I also helped start a competitive robotics club at the Philadelphia High School for Girls.

Projects

Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) attempt to develop a system where a user controls a computer directly with his or her thoughts. Direct use of recorded brain signals allows a BCI to bypass the neuromuscular system, providing a promising research area for restoring communication or movement in patients with neuromuscular diseases or disorders. In this work, we focus on using imagined body movements for high-level control of a small humanoid robot.

This project developed algorithms to allow humanoid robots to play modern human instruments in a co-operative ensemble. The primary focus was using audio signal processing to "listen" to a performance in real time in order to detect and correct errors made while playing.